Only Adam
by TolkienGirl
Summary: The secret is not that you were once in love. The secret is that you still are. [Ten years ago, Regina Wentworth saved Adam Elliot's life. Whether or not he wasted it is an open question.] [Persuasion Modern Genderbend AU.]
1. Prologue

**A/N: Hi all, I'm so excited to start the next gender-bend voyage with you all! This one has been on my heart and mind for a while. I just wanted to say that it's going to be a bit dark in parts, with warnings for war-related violence, suicide, PTSD, and emotional abuse. So please be careful if those are triggers for you.**

 **Also I decided not to genderswap Sir Walter and Mrs. Clay. For reasons.**

 **Thanks for supporting my work!**

Prologue

 _"Bloom had vanished early."_

 _2008_

The rail of the bridge was nearly broken in three places. The boards buckled and splintered from the displacement of the stones in the foundation—the very reason it had been closed at all. But an early August hurricane had done the most damage: a tree had fallen clear across it, and though the tree had been hauled away, the yawning gap remained.

The boy knew all this. He had chosen mid-day because at night, teenagers (too separate from the current moment to even _feel_ like his own age) came and partied here. If he looked down, if he looked _hard_ , he could almost make out the amber shards of beer bottles in the swirling waters below.

He wondered if that would make it hurt more.

His palms were sweaty. He had thought about this, and the woods were silent to his left, the road empty to his right. There wasn't anyone to see.

Did no note make it more or less selfish? He ran his tongue over his teeth. Considering who would read the note, it was better not to leave one.

He felt tired, and like the sun was giving him a headache.

An inch forward. He'd have to dive, to make certain—

"God _damn_ it."

The boy spun so quickly he had to rock back on his heels to keep himself from falling. It was the first survival instinct he'd had all day; maybe some things never went away.

The girl had barked her knee against the edge of the road-closed sign, trying to inch her way around it. She looked up and saw him.

He saw a cloud of sandy hair and freckles, and he fell in love like he was allowed to.

The girl stared at him, her scraped knee forgotten. He opened his mouth to explain, and shut it again, because she either recognized what she saw or she didn't.

The girl continued staring, dug in her pocket, and said, "Want some?"

She was holding out a joint.

He'd never smoked—anything, actually. There were a lot of things he'd never done, but a moment ago had been too late to think about that. He stepped away from the edge of the bridge.

The girl rolled her lighter nimbly, with the tight little bundle between her teeth.

Waiting for her, he didn't know what to do with his hands or his feet or his body. Wasn't that the whole problem?

She took a good long drag, huffed the smoke out through her nose. Her nose was a little tilted at the end. Elfin. Except for the scraped knee and the acne on her chin, he might not have thought she was human, or anywhere near his age.

"Oh, thanks," he said, inanely, and took the joint. It made him cough. He didn't know what else he was supposed to say about it.

"Cool bridge."

He thought of the broken glass amid the broken rocks below. "It is. Or it was. They need to repair it."

She lifted her eyebrows. They were pointed, and a few shades darker than her cloud of hair. "Noticed that, yeah."

He figured that another hit would be too much, though for what, he wasn't sure. He handed it back to her and thanked her again, which was dumb. She was staring at him again. It wasn't a goggle-eyed kid's stare. She had light brown eyes, like a tabby cat's, and they were boring into him.

"I'm Adam," he said, before the silence went on too long. "I go to school here." It was easier to say, somehow, than _I live here_.

Live.

"On the bridge?" she asked, lifting just one of her eyebrows.

For some reason, that made him laugh. And when he looked at her again—Adam always looked down when he laughed—she was laughing too.

She held out her hand. "I'm Regina. I go by Ree."

They shook. She sat down, and patted the boards beside her. He sat down. He was wearing jeans. His oldest pair, actually; it had seemed the polite thing to wear when you were going to—

Anyway.

"So, Adam," Ree said. "What the hell are you doing?"


	2. Chapter One

_"They must retrench; that did not admit of a doubt."_

 _i._

The plate slipped out of his grasp, but Adam caught it before it hit the dishpan. Jamil was shouting about it being a thousand degrees in here today, hot as shit and hot as a bunch of other less savory things than shit.

Adam switched on the sprayer, rinsed three plates in quick succession, and realized that yes, it was hot enough that towel on his shoulder was soaking up sweat more than anything else.

"Adam."

He didn't hear at first, or didn't register it.

"Adam!"

Eduardo, the heavyset head chef, was holding out the office phone. "It's Russ."

Adam turned off the water and tugged off the dish-gloves. The pit of his stomach was heavy with dread, but he cradled the handset against his shoulder and said, "Hey, Russ."

"Adam. You need to come home."

That never meant anything good. He wanted, more than anything, to say, _I'm working_ , like he was in need of a job. Yes, that was the dream: the simple day-to-day demands of a dishwasher job. It wasn't a dream he could say aloud. There was, he supposed, still too much privilege tangled up in it.

"I'll be there," he said. Calculated the amount of time it would take to slip in the back door, take a shower, and come downstairs to the front room for whatever hell was being unleashed. "Twenty minutes?"

"Sooner, if you can," Russ sighed. He had an aristocratic sigh; narrowly breathed. "Your father is ready to detonate."

Adam swallowed, feeling the hitch of it in his eardrums.

"Get out of here, son," Eduardo said, taking the phone back.

His family couldn't be everywhere, and that was a mercy: it meant that they didn't have to suffer the indignity of one the Elliot heirs slinking around the glossy glass-plated front of Kellynch Hall, balling up a stained apron in hand.

They'd probably hear about it later, and then Adam would hear about it, and—

The panic attacks had been returning, lately. Which wasn't to say that they'd ever gone away, except for—well, except for one year that had been too good at the time to be anything but aching after. Adam dragged his knuckles against his sternum. Mantras. It was all about mantras, except when it wasn't.

 _In, out, down, through_. He forced a breath, and another. He used to quote poetry to himself. It used to help.

 _I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;  
I lift my lids and all is born again.  
(I think I made you up inside my head.)_

Kellynch Hall, set back from road a hundred yards, basked snow-white in the summer sun. It was built plantation style—though not old enough to share in that sordid history—and three elms fanned around it.

 _Three for my three sons_ , Walter Elliot was wont to say proudly—liking the trees, as a rule, better than the sons.

It was a fine dining establishment. This descriptor was practically branded on the forehead of everyone who passed in and out of it, cook, waiter, or maître d'. In its first year—the year Adam was born—it had been named fifth out of fifty best restaurants in rural Virginia, which seemed a qualified honor, but which nonetheless had the unquestionable rank of being the first official accolade.

Since then, Kellynch Hall had received notoriety that was increasingly unequal to its overhead costs. Oh, it was successful—but money made was money spent, where Elliots were concerned.

Adam picked up the pace, almost loping now, and ran through another snippet of Plath.

 _I fancied you'd return the way you said,  
But I grow old and I forget your name.  
(I think I made you up inside my head.)_

It snapped through him like a bolt, and he was running, really running now, and so what if running looked like _outrunning_? So what if—he was here, he was home, only that was the trouble.

Home. He shut his eyes, listened to the hourglass rattle of the gravel beneath his feet.

The Elliots lived in the shadow of Kellynch Hall. The house was very fine, Walter Elliot would tell you. Built in 1803. Very fine and very grand and tight as a drum. _Would you like a tour? Would you? Of course!_

The back door was locked.

Adam slipped the key out of his shirt pocket, unlocked the door, closed it quietly, and locked it again. It was just past noon. He had seven minutes to go.

He showered in three.

The front room of the fine house had double bay windows, and Walter liked it because of the way the light fell on the furniture, and, quite specifically, on him. He was in his favorite wingback chair when Adam stepped in, closing this door more quietly still.

Walter Elliot was fifty-five. He had always been handsome; his hair was still dark; Clooney-gray at the temples. His skin was too tight across his cheekbones, now. It was not the natural progression of age.

His sons resembled him, in essentials. Eric, the oldest, was heavier-browed and heavier-built, but still the favorite. Max, the youngest, was prone to poetic curls and less poetic ailments.

Adam was a slight shadow in between.

They were all here, as expected: Walter, Eric, a very weary-looking Russ, and, incongruously, Callie.

Callie was a friend of Eric's from college. She'd come home with him one spring break—strictly as a friend—and ever since then, she'd been…a frequent visitor.

Eric was thirty. He'd been out of college for eight years.

Callie, eyes on Walter, never seemed to mind the passage of time.

"Adam, you're here!" Russ announced, which made Adam's knees buckle, though he caught it in stride.

Eric was pissed. "Where the hell have you been?"

"The Hall." Adam hoped the damp edges of his hair would go unnoticed, and that Eric would instead take stock of his button-down and slacks, and assume that he'd been doing something other than dishwashing.

"Good, good," Russ said. Russ was running the conversation; Adam could see that Dad was checking his reflection in the face of his watch. So. "The Hall is what we're here to talk about."

" _Us Weekly_ ," Dad murmured, quirking a smile. He lifted his gaze and spun it around the room—Dad could do that, could cast a glare and a glow all at once. "It's been featured in _Us Weekly_."

Russ's hand fell, once, twice, on the back of Dad's chair. "I'm thrilled. But I can't be too clear—and we can have Lola Shepard here to discuss specifics, if you need—"

"Attorneys really should be better-looking." Dad shook his head. "Lola's face and hair are the same color as her damn tweed suits."

Russ had come to the end of his lengthy patience. "You will be facing bankruptcy in six months if you continue on this path, Walt. That's the whole of it."

There were few words that could turn Walter Elliot's head when that head was engrossed in top ten lists. _Bankruptcy_ , it seemed, was one of them. Adam held back a pained smile.

"Bankrupt? Are you insane?" Dad was on his feet. He was a tall man, a little stooped in the shoulders now. Not an intimidating figure to most people, though, Adam was sure. Unless you were twelve, and seemed to have poked every nerve ending through to the surface of your skin.

"I am perfectly sane, and you need to listen." Russ planted his hands firmly on his hips. Dad wilted, bark reproportioned against bite. "Adam and I—"

"Adam?" Eric scoffed. "Why would you consult _Adam_?"

Adam saw Russ grind his teeth. He wanted to lift a hand, brush away the tension, say _it's not worth it, not on my behalf_ , but he stayed quiet.

"Adam and I have spent the past two weeks combing through the books," Russ said, distinctly. The edge to his tone held even Eric at bay, at least for the moment. "I'm going to put this plainly: there are two options in front of you."

 _"He'll never go for it_ ," Adam had said, two days ago. It had been past nine o'clock at night, when they'd finished. For once, Adam wasn't at Kellynch, making sure the later reservations ran smoothly. He had been holed up in Russ's office, seeing how nothing was running smoothly at all. _"You know him, Russ. He won't want to give up anything."_

" _It's not going to be a choice before long."_ Russ had put a hand on his shoulder. Russ didn't have the fine Elliot features, nor was he very tall, but he could be more imposing and reliable, all at once, than any Elliot of the lot of them. " _Adam, if I can find good tenants, we may have a way out of this."_

And Adam had swallowed down the old swirl of sickness, knowing that the way out wouldn't be the one he wanted, agreeing to it all the same.

"Two ways? You went to the trouble of coming up with two ways out of something you said was impossible a moment ago?" Walter's voice rose in inflection.

For the first time, Callie spoke. "Walt, it might be worth hearing, you know? Best for your business? Business is your baby, right?"

Adam bit his lip. He couldn't change expression, not now. Anything that would piss Dad or Eric off wouldn't help the cause.

Walter huffed out a tremendous breath. "Fire away then, Russ. Destroy me."

"You've got to cut expenses." Russ lifted a portfolio from the coffee table and held it out like a challenge. "We drew up a list of negotiables and non-negotiables."

" _We_." Eric was dripping venom again. "Again, you and _Adam_? I'm not interested in hearing _Adam's_ take on thrifty living."

It was just as well that they weren't twelve and fifteen again, Adam supposed. That would have meant ending this conversation with a mouthful of misplaced teeth, even if he said nothing at all.

In the end, Eric didn't even have to hold fast on the position of disapproval; their father fulfilled it adamantly. "This is _insane_ , Russell! I can't be seen to live like this! A restauranteur, practically living hand-to-mouth? What a load of bull—"

"There is another way," Russ interjected, before Walter could burst a vein. Adam dragged his nails against the curve of his palm. This was—it must be—why Russ had called him here at such short notice. Russ had found tenants, and didn't want to miss any window of opportunity.

Things really were that dire. Such windows were in short supply.

"Oh?" Walter lifted an eyebrow. He was almost trembling; Adam knew that his father hated being threatened by any kind of common woe.

"You can contract out management of Kellynch Hall, lease your house, and move to D.C."

Walter went white. Almost inaudibly, he whispered, " _Dale_."

Russ nodded, tapping a flat index finger against the portfolio. "Yes. You can take Dale Rymple up on her standing offer."

"Merge?" Eric didn't get paler when he was angry. He got redder. "Manage one of the Rymple offshoots, and sell Kellynch? Our birthright?"

Their birthright, Adam was privately sure, was something very different. He kept his chin up, didn't want to look at his feet, didn't want to imagine them on the edge of anything.

"I said _contract out_ ," Russ returned, admirably calm. "Not a permanent arrangement, but one whereby the income substantially goes to the managers and keeps the lights on, during the agreed-upon term. That can be handled. The problem is outside expenditures. You will _have_ to lease the house."

"D.C. _is_ wonderful," Callie breathed. She was sitting on the corner of the sofa nearest Walter's chair, and her hand was dangling near his knee. In the sunlight, her blonde eyelashes fluttered, gilded.

Walter frowned as much as his face would allow and asked, at last, "Who are your potential tenants?"

Just like that, Adam knew that he and Russ had one, even if it didn't feel like winning. He looked at Russ, who wasn't looking at him. Suddenly Adam wondered why. Wondered who the tenants were.

"Marina and Simon Croft," Russ said.

Adam bit the inside of his mouth, one allowance to the shock and sickness of it, and looked down.

 _ii._

"You're quiet today, Regina."

The diving bluebirds on Dr. Bhatia's wallpaper were disturbing. The artist had made their eyes too large. One of these days, Regina was going to say something about it. One of these days.

What she said now was, "I'm always quiet."

Dr. Bhatia didn't break eye contact, she just tucked a smooth strand of hair behind her ear. "OK. What's on your mind today?"

"Anisah was denied life insurance."

"Anisah Harvelle, right? Your best friend."

"Yes." Regina leaned forward, elbows on her knees, so that she could run her hands through her hair. It was better than staring into Dr. Bhatia's relentless eyes.

"She has a family?"

"Three kids." The shrapnel that had shattered Anisah's hip that day had left her with a permanent limp, but it hadn't prevented her from having children. She always said she was nothing but grateful for that, that she'd do it again if she had to. "And a husband." Nicholas. Regina grinned, tilting her head up. "He's not bad, for a man."

Dr. Bhatia acknowledged that with a smile. "Why was she denied life insurance?"

"Pretty sure you can guess, given what we're doing here."

Dr. Bhatia took a note. Regina hated when she did that, even if it was technically necessary. "She was denied life insurance because of PTSD?"

"Yeah. Crazy, right? I promise you, she's far saner than I am." Regina leaned back in her chair. She was always a restless mover. "And I'm still around, aren't I?"

"So, it bothers you because it's unfair to her? Or because you want life insurance?"

Regina resisted the urge to rub her shoulder. It hurt sometimes, OK? Not just a nervous tic. But you couldn't expect a psychiatrist to get that. "Me? Life insurance? I don't have dependents."

"You have a brother."

"Yes. He's rich. Covers these meetings. Insurance gets a little spotty when you've been out for a few years."

Dr. Bhatia nodded. "OK. So it's just the injustice of it."

"Anisah is just trying to take care of her family, on a shoestring budget." It wasn't possible to convey in words—especially when words weren't a strong point of Regina's—what Anisah had done, and still did every single day. "She gets around somehow, even when her hip sucks. She even took in Benwick."

"Benwick?"

Regina arched a brow. "I could swear I already told you about Benwick, Doc."

"I'm sorry," Dr. Bhatia said, reaching for her portfolio. "I can refer back to my notes."

"No, that's fine." Regina waved a hand. Referring to notes really brought home the clinical edge of all of this. "Benwick was in the same Humvee we were. She was part of our unit, and we always rode with each other when we could. _Women stick together_ , you now. So yeah—the, uh. That day, her fiancé was in…you know, the other one." _Pheebs_. A nice guy. Which was what you'd want to say for all of them, but you couldn't. Some of them had been jackasses. "Benwick—well, her name is Emily, actually. Emily had a really rough time afterwards, and…she stayed with her family for a couple years, but that wasn't helping, so she lives with Anisah now."

Dr. Bhatia pressed her lips together sympathetically. "Anisah has a lot on her plate."

"You could say so."

"I would. But so, for that matter, do you." Dr. Bhatia jabbed the air with her pen.

"Me? I'm fine. You know I'm only here because Simon thinks it's important."

Dr. Bhatia shifted her notes and portfolio to the ottoman beside her chair and linked her fingers around her knee. A pretty classic therapist pose, in Regina's opinion. "We've been meeting for six months, Regina. You've been out for five years."

"And all that time, I survived."

"Parasailing?"

"That was a summer job." Regina chuckled. It wasn't exactly a sore subject; water was one of the few total distractions life offered. "What can I say? I was sick of desert climates."

Dr. Bhatia was nodding again. "That's understandable."

Regina sighed. "What are you getting at?"

"Six months. You've told me about Anisah, and now Emily. You've told me about the incident, and your injuries. You've told me about the jobs you held in between, your love of water and sailing and all of that. You've told me about your brother and his wife."

The question was rolling in like a wave. When the wind turned on the water, it always felt like a warning, even when you knew what to do.

Regina knew what to do. She set her expression on neutral and waited.

Dr. Bhatia asked quietly, "Who were you before?"

Regina smiled. Whether it was convincing or not wasn't really the point. "Before what?"

"Before the Army."

"Nobody." There were many ways in which that was strictly true, and many other ways in which it wasn't. "Just a punk kid. I can assure you, though, that the PTSD crap comes from the IED, not my GED."

Another note. "You got your GED?"

"It was a joke. _God_."

Dr. Bhatia shrugged. "Just bridging the gaps."

 _Bridge_. It was a poor choice of words, though the doctor, of course, wouldn't know that. Regina dragged her teeth against her lower lip. "I was lucky," she said. "I got out with a plate and a couple screws in my shoulder, and some twisted up shi—junk in my head. And that's what you're for, right? You don't have to worry. Simon's getting his money's worth."

"But are you?"

Regina reminded herself that the woman probably meant well. Scratch that; she definitely meant well. It was likely in her job description. She crossed her ankles. "You tell me. Speaking of, I've been having these nightmares, lately."

And she had, but they weren't the ones she was going to talk about. Few things were a total distraction. You just needed one that was good enough for now.


	3. Chapter Two

_"Wentworth was the very name!"_

 _i._

It was over quickly, in the way most endings were. Adam had learned long ago which stairsteps creaked the least. He retreated, near-silently, to his room.

Dad had agreed. Indignation passed too, just as Adam had expected once certain luxuries were secured. Dad and Eric—and Callie—were all planning for a new life in D.C. The humiliations of necessity were could be forgotten in the face of glamorous possibility and bold unknowns. Dad only expressed his deep concern over whether the Crofts were good-looking people.

Russ had assured him that they were. "A little countrified, maybe, but good, solid people. And no children or dogs—they'll keep it neat."

Adam stretched out on his bed, one arm under his head. It wasn't a perfect house—the hairline crack in the ceiling was a telling structural reminder—but it was infinitely preferably to the city.

And he would have to live in the city. The family business, wherever and whatever it was, was his livelihood.

 _Someone has to keep an eye on the finances._

 _Right. Much good your eye did._

What was it, particularly, about his life that made duty seem so much like cowardice?

Three taps on the door. The fact that the visitor was knocking at all meant that it was certainly Russ.

Adam got up and opened the door.

"Thought you might want to talk," Russ said. He had a sympathetic crease in his forehead.

Adam sat on the edge of the bed. Russ took the only chair—an ugly wingback that had been relegated to Adam's room when it no longer suited Walt's tastes. Which hadn't taken long.

"I'm sorry," Russ said. "I wish I could have told you sooner, and alone."

Adam kept quiet. Anything he said would sound like an accusation, and Russ didn't deserve that. Russ had done everything—everything—out of good will.

"The name didn't even come up until—well, I did some digging. Charles Musgrove recommended them. I guess that the Crofts are friends of the Musgroves."

"They are," Adam said. His voice sounded faint in his own ears. "Max told me."

"A connection within a connection," Russ offered gently.

"Not quite." Adam's ears were ringing. "More of—a connection outside a connection." _A cruel coincidence_. "I think Max is the only one who knows the ins and outs." And Max—despite of, or perhaps because of, his self-preoccupation—had never spilled the secret.

Russ rested his hands on his knees. "I mean what I said, about talking. There's a long road ahead of you, Adam. The same changes we planned—those are still in place."

Russ spoke as if it were a hopeful thing. What he meant was staying beside to pack up a houseful of overpriced artifacts and bitter memories. What he meant was moving to a city that hadn't saved Adam last time, either.

"There's nothing to talk about," Adam told him. "Really. I'm glad you found tenants. They're good people."

"Because they're hers?"

Sometimes ten years felt like nothing at all. "I—the past is past, Russ. I'm not a kid anymore. You don't have—you don't have to worry about me."

"That's not what your Mom would say." Russ stood up all the same. He made a real effort, being respectful of Adam's frequent need for isolation.

Russ closed the door behind him and Adam leaned back, back, so the ceiling could swim above his eyes again.

Ten years. It stretched out, interminable. Rehab in D.C. Home again, ghost-like. College, late and long and never really finished. Charlie Musgrove, falling in love with him. His soul-aching relief when she'd fallen for Max instead. Snippets of information passed through casual channels of gossip.

Snippets he'd clung to. Water to a drowning man, and all that.

But what was the metaphor when the drowning man had turned his back on the water's edge?

Adam went back to work. It seemed the simplest thing to do. Kellynch Hall wouldn't be closing, though the staff would hear the news of a management shift soon enough.

"What did the old man want?" Jamil asked.

The clatter of dishes was comforting. It overruled any danger that Adam's pulse could be heard. "Family crap," he said. "The usual."

Jamil nodded. There was an understanding in the kitchen, one that Adam ought to feel a bit humiliated by. Instead, he was simply grateful. Anybody who had spent five minutes in the presence of the Elliots saw how things were.

It had taken _her_ less than that.

 _"Shitty dad, shitty brother, whiny brother. Have I got that right?"_

 _"Um."_

 _"There's no one else here. You don't have to pretend. I bet that's what got you here in the first place, right? Pretending?"_

"You doing alright, Adam?" It was Eduardo this time.

Adam swiped his wrist over his forehead. The heat was almost comforting: physical discomfort, universal and easily explained. Nothing to distinguish him from any of them. "Yeah," he said. _Pretending._

Max had told him about the Croft connection. He'd been restless after a bout of walking pneumonia. The one time when Max was _actually_ sick, in recent memory, and he hadn't enjoyed it at all. He'd been shocked to find that he had contracted an illness without knowing what it was.

Of course, once diagnosed, the doctor hadn't needed to prescribe any kind of bedrest. Max had refused to leave his room for weeks.

And Adam? Adam had kept him company, because Charlie might have married Max, but she could barely summon the patience to sit through an entire day with him. She'd been the one to call Adam, and Adam had brought several jars of Kellynch Hall's best broth with him.

 _"Heard something about Ree the other day_ ," Max had said.

Adam had all but stopped breathing. He had said nothing. Adam's best option on any given day was to say nothing.

 _"Charles knows her brother."_

Ree had always liked the whiny brother better than the rest, so Max should, presumably, know. _"She…doesn't have a brother."_

 _"It's a recent thing."_ Max had coughed limply, and Adam, hand not quite shaking, had passed him a mug of tea. _"Croft. That was the name—Charles' new best friend or whatever. You know how Amelia loves to talk, talk, talk. She was telling Charlie about this long-lost half-sister of this Croft guy, some girl named Regina. Wild child. In the military. Sound familiar?"_ When Adam, again, had said nothing, Max had shrugged. Max lost interest in topics that he didn't get a reaction over. _"I, of course, didn't tell them. Didn't want the drama."_

Drama was one word for it, though not one Adam would have chosen.

Drama better described what was happening now—a clash of worlds, a collapse of an empire only built and believed in by a few.

He wondered how close she was, with these Crofts. She'd always wanted a family, he knew that. He knew so many things he didn't think he was supposed to, anymore. He'd held onto them for ten years.

It was only the ending that had gone quickly.

 _ii._

"Does Simon…know?"

"That's the worst of it." Regina pressed her fingertips against her forehead. She had a sluggish ache settling there. "It's a fu—freaking"—one of Anisah's many children had just toddled in—" _Coincidence_."

"But he knows you went to high-school there."

"Yeah. Said he visited the area a few times when we were figuring everything out, you know. Took a real shine to it." She rolled over on one side, propping herself up on an elbow. Anisah's couch was so old one could practically be swallowed up by it. "Now. Two options, Neez. One, I find an excuse to spend the summer in…I don't know, Nevada? Or I have a very uncomfortable conversation with my far-too-concerned older brother. Who probably spills the whole thing to my far-too-interested shrink." And that wasn't even the worst of it. The worst of it was—

 _There. Going there._

Anisah lifted a stack of dishes into the sink. "Pretty sure that would be a major breach of their code of ethics."

"I don't trust 'em."

"You don't trust anyone." Anisah turned. "Hey! Fatima! No. Hey. Out of your mouth." She struggled briefly with her youngest and emerged, triumphant, with a highlighter cap, badly chewed.

"Gross," Regina deadpanned. "Hey, sit down. I'll do the dishes."

"I'm fine." The twitch by Anisah's left eye betrayed her.

"Cut the shit."

"Wentworth. There are children around."

Regina pushed her hair off her forehead. "There are always children around." She swung her legs off the couch and crossed the room to the towering pile of dishes. Fatima was crawling under the table now.

Anisah, despite her protests, sat down heavily, her hand moving to rub her hip. "At the risk of, I don't know, getting punched…what's so bad about seeing him again? If he even still lives there?"

 _I would rather die_. "Not happening."

Her tone must have conveyed enough, because Anisah didn't push that point. "Simon's renting the house regardless. That means the family is going somewhere else. Did he say where?"

"No, because I didn't tell him—"

"Anything?"

"Being heckled by you makes it obvious why I don't tell people anything on principle."

Anisah sighed. "Simon is going to know something is up. Hey, baby, I'm sorry. No lap today. Mama's leg hurts."

Regina started on another plate. Fatima pouted and pressed her head against Anisah's knee. "I'll talk to him, I guess. A little."

"Simon?"

She tried to say—thought of saying, _No, I mean Adam_ , but she stopped just short of it. It sent a dangerous shiver through her all the same.

Ten years and a war between them. It shouldn't be like this. " _Obviously_ , I mean Simon."

Anisah patted Fatima's back. "You don't have to go with him, if you don't want. You could stay with us."

 _In what space?_ The kitchen-dining-living room was also impromptu storage for the kids' toys. Anisah and Nicholas had one bedroom, with Fatima; the other four children were packed into the second. The last room in the house had been taken over by Emily.

Regina shook her head. "I'll figure something out," she said. "Six months, right? Time I found my own place anyway." She grabbed a fistful of silverware and plunged it into the suds.

"I think Simon would rather talk through what's going on than have you move out too soon." Anisah pulled the elastic out of her curls, both hands twisting a high ponytail. "I know you need to hear this, so I am going to say it. You are not a complainer. I haven't heard you bring this up in years. Since over there, actually."

"Yes, it comes to mind when I think I'm going to die," Regina said dryly. "Or when my brother moves into…the same goddamn house."

"Maybe you rent something nearby?"

"Maybe. But Simon'll flip if I'm not…well-settled. He worries about my mental state."

"I worry about your mental state."

"So I'm a nomad with a past." Regina shut the tap off. "Half of my—crap was screwed up before I joined, and half of it got screwed up after. I just…didn't think life was going to go in circles."

"But we can agree that Nevada is off the table?" Anisah could be ruthlessly efficient when she wanted to be.

Regina flung herself on the couch again. "Yes, fine. I'm not insane."

She could see it, now, in her mind. His room, with that infernal crack in the ceiling. She remembered sitting elbow to elbow on the floor. That's where they'd been sharing AP English homework or some shit—and he'd leaned over and—

It made her feel like a fool. Ten years ago, she'd been a child. A wild child. _That_ past didn't need revisiting, even if that was where her life was taking her. She was used to running, when it came to it. Used to growing up and getting over.

"How did Simon even find out about the opportunity?"

"Friends of his. Some farmers or something. They sell to the restaurant." It _had_ been a while, truly, since Regina gave much thought to Walter Elliot. Her lip curled in scorn at the very memory. "His dad was all about that home-grown, farm-to-table BS. Man couldn't even boil an egg."

"Am I allowed to laugh?"

"At Walter? Sure as hell." As soon as the words left her mouth, she regretted them. Not out of any loyalty to Walter. Far from it. She had only just remembered the way Adam used to shrink away from his Dad's blinding, artificial glow.

 _God_. She'd thought she could fix him.


	4. Chapter Three

_"Forced into prudence in their youth, they learned romance as they grew older: the natural sequel of an unnatural beginning."_

 _i._

 _"So, Adam. What the hell are you doing?"_

 _"Sorry. This"—the joint—"Is yours."_

 _She had taken it, holding it in her fingers, not putting it back between her lips. Maybe he'd ruined it._

 _He'd said, "Are you OK?" and she'd laughed, eyes round._

 _"Am_ I _OK?"_

 _"You sort of…seemed upset."_

 _She'd looked at him like he was from another planet. Later, he'd get used to that. Get used to the way she looked right through people, and looked right into him. "Dude. You're the one who was about to jump."_

When the news broke, Adam was in the kitchens. They were all called in to the dining hall, where Eric was standing grimly beneath the rose window, arms folded over his chest.

"What's going on?" Jamil asked.

Adam said nothing. He shrank back a little, half out of habit, half out of a not-quite hope that Eric wouldn't see him.

The fact that Adam worked in the kitchens—the thought that there might be any necessity for it—always made Eric see particularly red.

Eric, ever brutally patient, wasted no time in dispensing with niceties. Kellynch Hall was shifting in management, the staff would be cut by half, the Elliots were pursuing better business opportunities in D.C. for the time being.

Humiliation and cruelty combined. Adam's knees almost buckled. The staff must know of the money troubles; that sort of thing got around. The lay-off was a harsh reality. Phrased as opportunism, it hit that much harder.

He stuck around; he wanted to run. That was Adam.

He always wanted to run.

Some of the waitresses cried. July was a bad time to start fresh in the job market. Eduardo set his heavy jaw and shook his head.

Adam said the words _I'm sorry_ so many times they started to sound strange. But he was grateful, at least, to be able to say them out loud.

"It's not your fault," Eduardo told him. Eduardo would probably stay on. But what about Jamil? Stacey? Elizabeth, with her twin girls?

 _There is nothing you can do._

Russ said that to him sometimes. It was a blessing and a curse and Adam always shivered under it.

 _"So you're just going to end it all."_

 _He'd already told her why. Mom was gone. Shouldn't he be too? "There's nothing else I can do."_

 _"Bullshit." She had stood up, and she wasn't very tall, but she had been in what could only be described as a towering rage. "You could do lots of things. Even_ I _know that, and I've only known you five minutes." Then she'd smiled, and Adam's traitorous ribs had opened up around his heart. "Look at that. You've been alive for five more minutes."_

For two weeks, Adam helped with resume-reading and job-searching. He wasn't in charge of packing for D.C. because he wasn't wanted in D.C. That had been made abundantly clear by both Dad and Eric.

So Dad and Eric hired movers with money they didn't really have to transport what "mattered" to a lavish apartment in D.C., and Adam packed away all the rejected family heirlooms, in light of the Crofts' impending arrival.

"I'm glad you're staying," Russ said. It was the last week of July. So close to August, and remembrances. "Damn, it will be hard to lose you, even just to Max." Russ, for all the misery of spending thirty years on the sidelines while the love of his life married Walter Elliot, suffered through three sons with him and then died, was very fond of Adam.

If Russ had been the one to marry Mom—like he'd wanted to, since they were best friends in fifth grade—maybe Mom would still be alive. Adam, of course, would not exist.

(Adam had never considered that a particularly important detail.)

Back they went, he and Russ, to the attic, where they kept the empty boxes. There were many. Dad had vowed he'd keep everything that reminded him of Mom, but that wasn't true, after all. There wasn't a bit of her left in the house when Adam came back from D.C. the first time.

To be sure, there wasn't much left of _him_ when he came back from D.C. the second time.

"So much dust," was Russ's only comment.

Adam thought the covers looked like shrouds.

Russ had facilitated communication with the Crofts. They were arriving the first week of August, and Adam would be leaving for a month with Max and Charlie. The Musgroves could always use extra hands with their August harvest. It wasn't so much that Adam was needed _himself_ as that Max usually contracted some new and deadly disease just when Charlie was most involved on the farm.

Years had proven that Adam was the most effective antidote.

Swathed and bundled, the unloved furniture hunched like so many waiting ghosts. He wasn't panicking, but Emily Dickinson fluttered to mind all the same: _As 'twere a Spur—upon the Soul— / A Fear will urge it where / To go without the Sceptre's aid / Were Challenging Despair._

One day, too soon for comfort, their duty was done.

"I'm glad," he said. In the emptiness, the words bounced and echoed sharply. He shouldn't have said it, he could hear the break in his own voice, but when he was nearly alone he sometimes did foolish things. "I'm tired of this house."

"Adam," Russ said softly. "You're not yourself."

Adam didn't laugh. He didn't laugh because that would have seemed like scoffing, and Russ didn't deserve-

Anyway. It _was_ funny. Funny that Russ, of all people, really thought Adam had been himself in a long, long time.

"Nothing that won't pass," he said, and meant life, just like he always did.

"I can't imagine." Russ shook his head. "How this brings it all back." Russ, for the all the ways Dad always called him drab, was a deep thinker and feeler. He was observant, that was what. He tucked his chin in a bit, almost as if bracing himself. "Are you—angry with me?"

"Angry?" Adam wheeled around. He had been practically staring down his pathetic little heap of suitcases, as if they were likely to carry themselves away from under a careless eye. In a few hours he would leave this house, and the next people to enter it would be—her family. "Why would I be angry?"

Anger had always seemed, to Adam, a feeling you had to deserve.

He didn't have a lot left of her anyway, outside the knowledge of this ironically linked future. In his books were tucked a couple letters; a joking sketch or two. She used to fold her letters like sailboats. She also used to crook her elbow around his neck, kiss the line of his collarbone, and swear a blue streak whenever she wanted to cheer him up.

He smiled at Russ, praying that Russ couldn't see the chasm that was opening all around. "I'm fine, really."

"You were very young."

 _Only the good die young_. Maybe that was why he was still alive. "I'm not angry, Russ." This time, it sounded a little desperate.

Still, Russ pressed on. "Someday, though, you might need to be. And I'll still be here, Adam. I want you to know that."

 _Someday_. It was unimaginable, that _someday_ , to think that there were years and years of bleak, close-lipped existence to be exhausted rather than lived.

"Thank you," Adam murmured, and reached for his bags.

 _ii._

Five years on, and her nights still weren't restful. Bleary-eyed, she buried herself in coffee, sunglasses, and the steadiness of highway driving.

 _Dreams are about processing_ , Dr. Bhatia liked to say. _Not just trauma. What are you working through?_

 _My fifty minutes_ , Regina would tell her, smirking.

She really was a shit patient. Dr. Bhatia undoubtedly deserved better.

Simon welcomed her home anyway, with no rebuke for her unexplained weekend escape to Anisah's. He was the same every time, even though she had never stopped shying away from referring to his and Marina's three-story rowhouse as _home_ at all.

"Did you hear?" Marina asked, hugging her. Regina dropped her bags on the floor and then felt like an overgrown teenager, making a mess before she was even fairly through the door.

"Hear what?"

"About the house—oh, right. You already know. I get so excited I forget that I've told the same news three times." Marina had been a distance runner until a knee injury had taken her permanently out of commission. She didn't limp. Fortune favored some people and not others, and that was some bullshit, but Regina didn't begrudge Marina—anything, really. Even Marina's wardrobe, still composed entirely of athleticwear, got a free pass.

"I hear it's pretty down there," Regina said, noncommittal. _I spent the last year of highschool there and it really screwed me up, which is kind of surprising, given the state I was already in_ , was not a statement she was prepared to make.

When she turned around, Simon was already taking her bags upstairs.

"Hey! You don't have to do that!"

"I know!" he called down, sounding amused.

They had lunch on the back patio and then Marina dragged out a bag of potting soil.

"Why," Regina asked, through a mouthful of sandwich, "Are you planting new shit if you're moving in two weeks?"

Marina raised her gardening gloves in surrender. She was surrounded by all manner of incriminating evidence—stacks of planters and seed packets and cartons of vines. "I'm obsessed. They're _bicolor petunias_. How could I resist?"

Simon had disappeared into the kitchen with the plates but now he was back again, with a couple tall glasses of amber sweet tea.

A conversation was clearly in the offing.

Simon sat down, back to the sunshine, and drank his tea slowly. The midday glare made him look much blonder than he was. As it was, Simon's hair was more faded than Regina's, with good reason—he was fifteen years older than she was.

He'd only found her when she was twenty-two.

"So," he began. "Good trip?"

"Yeah."

"How's Anisah?"

"Leg's bothering her. Not that she complains."

And if Anisah were here, she'd be reminding Regina how right she was. Something needed to be said, but it wasn't the whole story. "I'm champing at the bit a little," was what Regina settled on at last. "I'm going to get back out there, job-wise." She hadn't really thought it through until the words were said aloud, but sometimes that was the just way the chips fell. She needed _some_ kind of plan, so that she didn't end up in Adam's old room in two weeks, hyperventilating over the past.

Simon leaned back, squinting. "You know," he said, "I'm not sure _how_ to phrase this without you thinking there's some conspiracy, but…Marina and I have been talking."

Regina stayed stoic, even though, yes, sure. He had her number. Fight-or-flight was thumping in her ears and chest.

"I know how much you value your independence."

 _…We don't ever have to leave each other. I swear…_

She swallowed down the sourness, the memory. "That's a nice way of saying I'm an ornery bitch."

"You're not." Simon didn't even chuckle. Didn't get dismissive. "You like running your own life. I know these past few months, with the surgery and everything, threw a wrench in that."

"What tipped you off? The therapy bills?"

Simon tapped a finger thoughtfully against his glass. "It's just for the rest of the summer, but I have a way to get you your own place—of a sort—if you'd like."

She hadn't expected the conversation to go like this. On the other side of the patio, Marina was transplanting her cartoned petunias with remarkable energy, and pretending not to listen.

Simon raised his eyebrows. "How do you feel about farm work?"

Anything short of open water was a downgrade from her dreams, but still better than…well, than any number of options, languishing among them. "Sounds fine."

"Good friends of mine—Musgrave, name is. They're a family-run enterprise. They hire out a bit, but it's mostly just them. They raise organic vegetables, about ten miles from where Marina and I are renting."

"Ah."

"They're very down-to-earth, USDA stickers notwithstanding." Simon chuckled. "You'd like them, I promise."

Regina scraped her thumbnail against her knuckles, not quite making a fist. "Room and board?"

"Yes, that's why I thought you might want it."

Her face didn't twist. She knew very well how to be stoic, now. "I'm sorry. I'm—" Grateful was a hard word to say, for reasons that weren't Simon's fault.

"You don't have to say thank you," Simon assured her quickly. Which, of course—fifteen years apart or not, they'd had the same mother, and all that _that_ meant. "You've done everything I've asked. The therapy. Even the bedrest, at least for a week."

Regina shot him a wry glance. "It was more like three days."

"I know."

They smiled at each other. Regina pushed her hair back, the never-ending gesture, despite how much of it she chopped off. "Hook me up. I'm ready to pick some beans or whatever the hell's in season."

"I'm so glad!" Marina called, patting a petunia into place. "Oh, God. Sorry. I wasn't supposed to be listening."

"No worries, love," Simon told her cheerfully. "I think Regina's learned to take the eavesdropping risks into account, here." He waggled his eyebrows. "Just another reason to try this out, huh? Your ticket to freedom."

 _To the future,_ Regina thought. _Ticket to the future._

She nodded, and was grateful.


	5. Chapter Four

_"So, you are come at last! I began to think I should never see you. I am so ill I can hardly speak."_

 _i._

 _"Holy shit."_

 _"What?"_

 _"Adam. None of these books are newer than 1950. What gives?"_

He'd lifted a shoulder. _"I like the classics."_

 _"Nobody_ likes _the classics,"_ she'd sniffed. _"They just cram them down their throats for the cred."_

 _"Like alcohol."_

That had caught her interest.

He'd shifted from one foot to the other, something he was in the habit of doing. Any movement that looked like _testing waters_ came naturally to him. _"Nobody likes the taste of that either, at first."_

 _"Well, damn. Point me to the whiskey."_ She flipped her wild curtain of hair over one shoulder and jabbed a finger at the shelf.

 _"The what?"_

 _"The whiskey. Of your books."_

What had he chosen? A decade later, he shouldn't remember, but he did. He'd lifted thin, gray-bound _King Lear_ and offered it to her on his flattened palm.

" _Shakespeare?"_

He'd loved when Ree laughed, even if it was at him. Adam had watched as she flipped it open, nimble fingers and blunt nails flicking at the pages.

 _"Ah."_ Her eyebrows had lifted. _"'The prince of darkness is a gentleman.'"_

 _"'As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods,'"_ he had said softly—like a fool, always bringing down the moment. Not that she had minded, then. "' _They kill us for their sport.'"_

 _"That's fucking depressing,"_ she'd told him. _"And you know nothing about whiskey, dumbass."_ Then she'd thrown the book aside and put her arms around him, and when he was kissing her he didn't hate the way the world settled around him, or the sound of his own breathing, or anything at all.

The weather hadn't dropped below eighty all week. Hell for farm-work, some might have said, but Adam would give a lot for some time in the sun.

He arrived at Max and Charlie's a bit ignominiously, just a couple of duffels in hand and a splash of coffee on his shirt. He'd taken the country bus, and the road had been bumpy.

"Uncle Adam!"

Tessa was six; Claire was four. They had Max's range of facial expressions and Charlie's warm dark skin. Tessa grabbed his hand and Claire wrapped herself around one of his legs.

"You've got a boot now," she announced solemnly.

"I do," Adam said, making a brave effort to step forward despite the new accoutrement.

"Let go, Claire." Tessa rolled her eyes. "Daddy wants to see him."

"Is Daddy home?"

"Sick," Claire told him, freeing him from the boot. She didn't sound too concerned. "He wants icy, but Mommy didn't make ice cubes."

"Iced _tea_ ," Tessa enunciated firmly. "Mommy's picking beans and blueberries. Are you going to pick beans and blueberries?"

Adam shouldered a duffel. "I think I'm going to make ice cubes, actually."

The girls led him towards the house. Max called it a cottage, but it was really an old farmhouse, shaded by close-growing trees. Charlie had gardened with her inherited green thumb; there was an herb garden by the front steps, and roses clambering up to the shutters, heavy and crimson and sweet.

Max was stretched out on a sofa in front of the bay window with a cold compress over his eyes. He lifted one corner of it with a thumb and finger.

"Oh." He heaved a sigh. "It's you."

"Hey, Max."

"You're lucky you caught me," Max said hollowly. "I've been…in and out."

Adam set down his bags and took the chair near the head of the sofa. "I'm here," he said. He didn't add, _for as long as you want me_ , because Max had no need of his desperation, now or ever. "Want me to make you some iced tea?"

"Charlotte over-brewed some this morning." Max waved a languid hand. "It's in the fridge. Jesus, the girls are so _loud_."

They were standing silently in the doorway, as a matter of fact. Adam shot them an encouraging smile. "Hey, Tess. Claire. Do you want to show me my room?"

"You're leaving me?" Max sat straight up.

"Just getting my stuff upstairs," Adam said. "Then I'll make some more tea? And did you eat?"

"I can't _eat_ when I'm like this."

"He had pancakes this morning," Claire called, from the foot of the stairs.

"That was a long time ago." Max sounded defensive. The clock said twelve-forty-five. Adam didn't comment on it.

 _He's the whiniest bitch to ever bitch_ , rang in his head, in _her_ voice. It wasn't without affection. _Just slap him good, one time, and it'll knock it out of him._

"This is your room," Tessa told him, swinging open the door.

It faced west. The ground rolled away downhill, and through the window he could see the lower field of the Musgrove farm. In peak season, they hired a few additional hands. He squinted, but couldn't make any of the figures out.

Claire, acting as spokeswoman, put her hands on her hips. "We're hungry."

"Sandwiches sound good?" Adam asked, a little absently.

"No bread."

He snapped back to the present. "Don't worry. We'll get something together, for you and Daddy."

His nieces were right. There wasn't any bread. No jelly, either, but he found a bag of apples and a box of crackers.

"Peanut butter apples!" squealed Claire, and Adam grinned.

"Long-time favorite."

"Did Walter make you these?" Tessa asked curiously. They called him Walter because Walter said that _Grandpa_ sounded too old. Sometimes Adam figured it was for the best that neither he nor Eric had children. Two grandchildren were as much as their father could manage.

He realized that Tessa had asked him a question. "No," he said. "Uh…he likes to cook fancier things. Have you ever had crème brulée?"

"Cremby what?"

"Brulée. I'll make you some."

"Got to buy some groceries first," Tessa said, reaching for another apple slice. "We need groceries, Uncle Adam. Mommy says."

He handed her the peanut butter spoon. "We will get groceries."

"Adam!"

Max had apparently taken to yelling from three rooms away. Adam scooped some slices onto a plate and brought it with him.

"Apple's good for the stomach," he suggested, taking the chair again.

"Not _my_ stomach." Max sounded gloomy, but the cold compress had disappeared. "So, Dad getting booted to D.C.? Didn't even come and see me first."

"Did you want him to?"

"Not really." Max ate one apple slice, than another. "But he still _should_ have. He's only going to have so many chances."

"D.C. isn't that far away," Adam pointed out. He needed a clean shirt, still, but he figured it could wait. "He and Eric will get settled. Then, maybe if you're well enough, you could visit them. You always liked the monuments."

"Better than that shit rehab you were in." Max cast a wearied glance at the ceiling. "You're all fortunate _I'm_ not given to suicidal urges. No offense, obviously."

"None taken."

"You don't do that anymore, right?"

Adam heard the edge of worry. He shouldn't be grateful for it, but he was. "No," he said. "That was the last time."

"Wish I had a fix like that. Could put this all in the past." Max had finished the apple. "You know, Charlotte has been at the farm _all morning_. It's not me I'm even concerned about, at this point. What would the girls do, if I was unconscious? These are the things nobody thinks about." He shifted restlessly. "And you didn't even ask me about dinner last night."

"Dinner?"

"Her parents do this big, bullshit harvest festival. It's _August_! We're barely bringing in melons."

"I wouldn't have thought you were well enough to go," Adam pointed out mildly.

"What? No, I was fine last night. Completely fine. It's just— _today_."

Adam schooled his features into appropriate gravity. "Well," he said. "You know I always cure you."

 _ii._

 _Reminder to self: it's just a goddamn house_.

"It has the most amazing porch," Marina said. _Babbled_ , if Regina was being rude, which she was trying not to. "Plenty of room for potters."

"Potters? Like for pottery?"

Simon chuckled. "Nah, she means planters." He leaned over and kissed his wife's cheek. "Unless we're getting some new earthenware I haven't heard about."

"You two are gross," Regina growled. Curled up in the backseat, she felt like a wayward teenager. Simon and Marina occasionally had that effect on her. They were innocent of this, of course. Simon and Marina were innocent of many things.

All of which went some way to explain why Regina was doing the thing she'd sworn never to do, even if it was only for a few hours.

 _"We make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars—"_

They could see the house. She could see the house. And it looked the same, but she didn't, and he wasn't here at all.

The boy on the bridge. She remembered his old jeans and the slump in his shoulders and the way he always looked a little surprised, if only anyone else in his life would _notice_.

"Regina?" Simon asked, glancing in the rearview, "You OK?"

The story went like this: once she was on a plane for fifteen hours and her heart was beating out of her chest. Once she was laughing on the long haul over sandy roads, until everything went red and sharp with heat. After that there was nothing singular about it all, nothing that could be distilled to _once_. Months of physical therapy, and paperwork, and medals pinned to a uniform she didn't want to wear anymore, but which she'd missed now that it was gone.

And nothing in all of that had hurt her like this house, even when it should have. She blinked hard, twice, and grinned. A fake-ass grin, but Simon didn't need to know that.

"Totally fine."

Simon was appeased. They rounded the bend in the road so that the house was front-and-center now, and they pulled into the empty driveway as Regina dug her fingernails into her knees.

 _The sun, the moon, the stars_ …

She would claw _King Lear_ out of her brain with an icepick if she had to, along with Sylvia Plath and the Wordsworth and all the rest. All the classics, that she should have never come to know.

 _"Do you read, Regina?"_

Dr. Bhatia had a way of crossing her knees that was graceful and slanted and didn't look weird in a skirt. Regina hadn't the knack, and was shit at wearing skirts anyway. _"Not a lot. Pulp fiction and whatever."_

 _"I know you're probably wondering why I asked. Books are shared experiences, and it sometimes helps me to know where to start, with a patient."_

 _"_ Jaws, _"_ Regina had said flatly, because she was being an asshole. _"That's my favorite book."_

 _"And you love water, don't you? An interesting combo."_

Simon and Marina had sent a moving van ahead—they only had a few odds and ends in the trunk of Simon's car.

Regina carried a pot of petunias in her arms and climbed the front steps. She didn't have to run around to the kitchen door in the back, didn't have to climb the tree and knock on his—on the window in the south corner of the house.

"Wait till you see inside," Marina said. "It's so great. We're having you over for dinner next Sunday. You and the Musgroves."

"Guess I can't really get away, can I?" Regina asked. It came out tighter than she meant it to.

"Only if you want to," Simon assured her, setting down an orange crate full of gardening gloves. "Come to dinner, I mean. Charles and Annmarie are old friends, so the invite wasn't just to rope you back to us. Promise."

"Thank you." _Sincerity. You owe him._ "Thanks. I will come. I'm sure I'll be hungry by Sunday."

"Annmarie is a fantastic cook." Simon scratched the back of his neck. "She'll feed you well. Hon, where did you want this?"

"Oh, we'll leave that in the foyer," Marina said. "I feel like I don't want to get a single speck of dirt on these floors. We didn't tell them we were gardeners!"

Regina almost said, _They'd hate that_ , but stopped herself in time.

In time.

She passed the stairs, knew exactly how the banister felt under her hand. His door was the one at the end of the hall. When it closed behind them, they were safe. At least, it had felt like safety to a couple of teenagers with nowhere else to go.

She had promised Simon and Marina that she'd stay for lunch, before heading over to the Musgroves. Simon had said it wasn't any trouble for him to drive.

Tonight, maybe, in the actual safety of a new room that was far enough from here to be unfamiliar, she'd call Anisah and spill the whole thing.

 _Bad idea. Leave her alone._

She ran a hand through her hair.

"Lunch?" Simon suggested, before Regina could do something incredibly stupid like pass out in the front hall. "We stocked the fridge yesterday."

She didn't want to eat. She didn't to be here, but choices had already been made. "Sure," Regina said. "I'll take a sandwich."

 _And a spell of amnesia._

Some things didn't need to be said out loud.


	6. Chapter Five

_"The Musgroves, like their house, were in a state of alteration, perhaps of improvement."_

 _i._

Charlie came back in mid-afternoon. Charlie was not known for her patience, but she was forgiving. She'd forgiven Adam for being too screwed up to fall in love with her seven years ago, and she forgave Max for being remarkably aggravating every day of the week.

She and Max has both been only twenty when they married. Adam had been twenty-one, and had not envied them.

That, of course, was not so much a judgment on them as on himself.

The last time Adam had seen her, she'd had a tightly wound crown of elaborate braids. This summer, she was wearing her hair natural, framing her face in a short halo. "Shit, it's so good to see you!" she exclaimed, squeezing Adam in a rib-cracking hug.

"We're not supposed to swear in front of the kids," Max fretted, plaintively, from the sofa.

Charlie rolled her eyes. "Sorry, I'm super sweaty. I swear my parents have enough money to hire like, ten more workers. I mean, Regina's coming in this week, but that's one! One! You would think they'd been alive during the Great Depression."

Adam said, as carefully as he'd ever said anything, "Regina?"

"Yeah, Regina Wentworth." Charlie stooped to unlace her work boots. "Pretty sure that was the name. She's related to the Crofts, who…aren't they the ones living at your house now?"

"Yes," Max answered, looking at Adam. "Same ones."

…

 _2009_

Hospital lights. The blur overhead sharpened into the square, merciless lines of overhead fluorescents.

His head spun with a frantic ache; his heartrate was too high. There was something he was supposed to remember.

" _Adam_?"

Russ, beside him, was gray-faced and tired.

" _I'm_ —" His mouth was dust-dry. " _What happened_?"

What was he forgetting.

" _You collapsed_ ," he heard Russ answer, with almost impossible gentleness. " _Dehydration and exhaustion_."

The memory of gasps of breath were coming back. So was something else. Adam sat up, even though his headache practically shrieked in protest.

" _I've got a flight_ ," he said desperately. " _I've got to meet Regina_."

Russ looked at him for a long time. Adam hated when people couldn't find the words to say. It was one of his faults too.

" _Adam_..." Russ reached out and rested a light hand on his knee. " _Regina's gone_. "

…

Adam took Tessa and Claire grocery-shopping. That way Charlie and Max could sort out their latest squabble over the dueling demands of health and farming, and Adam could think without being too obvious about it.

"Whatcha thinking about?" Tessa asked, kicking the back of his seat gently.

Well. Maybe he was still being too obvious.

"Just thinking about want to make for dinner," he said, with an encouraging glance in the rearview. He didn't feel particularly encouraging; he felt like an insect pinned to a board. The questions, the glances, and...her.

Her, coming here. _Working_ here.

There was so much he didn't know. So much he could never ask anyone.

When they returned, groceries in hand, she was still the favored topic of conversation. Max wanted to meet her, but first wanted to know everything Charlie had heard about her. No doubt, Charlie wrote it off as boredom-induced obsession, but Adam knew better.

"She looked so lovely at the wedding," Charlie was saying.

Adam cleared his throat. "The wedding?"

"Only time I've seen her," Charlie said, nodding. "You know, Mom still thinks the dress was too unconventional, but hey. Marina is not exactly known for her love of convention."

Adam's pulse resumed its thunderous pace in his ears. "I'm sorry. _Whose_ wedding?" He could feel Max's eyes on him, but he didn't care. He needed to know.

"Simon and Marina's," Charlie explained. "It was not long after they had their sibling reunion, or whatever. I think, anyway. I'd have to ask Mom."

"Anyway," Max added, lifting himself off the sofa and swathing himself dramatically in a fringed blanket, "We're meeting her at dinner tonight. You're invited, of course."

Adam tried very hard for a smile, and couldn't be sure whether he succeeded.

Then Tessa came in and said her tummy hurt.

Several puking episodes later, she was tucked up in bed with a hot water bottle and a dilapidated stuffed Eeyore.

The rest of the house, however, was in shambles.

"Stay at home?" Max demanded, aggrieved, "like I haven't been trapped here all day? Like I haven't—"

"Haven't been getting out of breaking your back picking beans? Don't give me _that_ shit."

Adam stepped in before it escalated, or before Max claimed better acquaintance with Regina as a trump card.

"Guys, it's fine. I'll stay here."

Charlie and Max both wheeled on him. "Really?"

Affection won over pain, and Adam really did smile this time. "Sure thing. I'll stay with the girls and make sure Tess is alright. You two go to dinner."

Then he climbed the stairs slowly, shut the door to his room, and buried his face in his hands.

 _ii._

The Musgrove family farm sprawled out over the land like a quilt. Regina had survived much worse weather than sticky August heat, and was inclined to be optimistic about the prospect of working under wide-open skies.

"They'll welcome you with open arms," Simon assured her. "Sorry about that." This, with a grin. He knew Regina didn't like hugs.

She submitted to Mrs. Musgrove's warm embrace and Mr. Musgrove's firm handshake. They were in their late fifties, heavy-set and spry. Their two sons, Henry and Lou, were taller, broad-shouldered and handsome.

"I think out parents are finally graduating to the future," Lou told her, lifting a conspiratorial hand to his mouth. "They're actually hiring outside the family tree."

It reminded Regina a little of the Elliots, though she did not say so.

Simon bowed out with excuses of a first dinner at a new home, and Regina was left at the mercy of her new employers.

Their mercy included endless explanations of every feature of house and farm, and a dinner spread that seemed practically Thanksgiving-ready.

"If only Charlotte and Max would ever come early," Mrs. Musgrove fretted.

"Charlotte and—"

"Daughter and son-in-law," Mr. Musgrove boomed, joining the conversation. "And parents of the two best kiddos in the world, not that I'm biased."

Henry grimaced. "And—they're always late."

"Oh," Regina answered vaguely. She was a little restless, expecting the past to leap out from behind every corner. Probably she just needed to eat.

The front door opened again at last. Charlotte was much shorter than her brothers, and curvy instead of tall and lean. She had her mother's smile and offered a hand to Regina.

"I'm Charlie," she said, and Regina couldn't help liking her at once.

Not that she had much time to, because trailing in after Charlie was Max Elliot.

She shouldn't be shocked. She shouldn't feel her stomach roiling under the white-hot wave of memory and…was that fear? No. No, it was grief. She put on her combat face and glared Max down.

"Nice to see you again," he said languidly.

"You too." She said it through a smile that was all teeth.

"Wait." Charlie's brows pinched together. "You know each other?"

Regina wondered if you could crack your own molars, biting down that hard.

Max lifted a shoulder. "A little. Are we going to go in and eat? This hallway is drafty as hell." He hadn't really changed. Regina was only glad that the stasis included the same surprising streak of secrecy that had flickered through him incongruously in his younger days. At least for the moment, he didn't seem overly eager to expose her.

Dinner started and Regina tried breathing through it. Lou and Henry were pretty endlessly charming. And hey, if you saw her walking down a street and didn't know that her shoulder was pocked and twisted with shrapnel scars, and didn't know that she was batshit with PTSD, you might find her attractive.

 _They_ might find her attractive.

She had a forkful of sweet potato casserole thrust halfway into her mouth when Mrs. Musgrove asked, "You were able to get a sitter?"

"No, actually," Charlie said, rolling her shoulders back in a sigh. "Tessa started throwing up, so Adam offered to stay with them."

"Adam came today!" Mrs. Musgrove exclaimed. "Charlotte! Why didn't you tell me?"

"I absolutely told you last week, Mom. You just must have forgotten he was coming the same day as Regina."

"And you made him stay home with the kids?" Lou complained. "You two are the worst. We want to see Adam!"

"More than you want to see me?" Max was immediately offended. Mrs. Musgrove shot a warning glance at Lou.

"Of course not," Henry filled in. "Just…we want to see him _too_."

It was easier to watch all this unfold boisterously than it was for Regina to give a second of space to her own heartbeat. An internal stream of profanity would do the trick too, anything to counteract how utterly she'd been blindsided.

Adam. Adam was _here._

"We are blessed," Mr. Musgrove was saying, "To have two extra helpers this season. The demands were getting a little much for us and the temporary workers. Adam and Regina are going to save us all."

Ok, yeah. It was only fair that _that_ nearly made her choke on her water.

In combat, the thinking and feeling parts of you shut down. There wasn't time, in between bullets and dust and smoke and screaming and whatever the hell else was going on, to worry about all that shit. All the _maybes_ of fate and future. All the stripped-down, soul-torn anguish that had dogged her heels for ten years.

She was just sitting here, outwardly calm as hell, eating a chicken dinner.

Goddamn.

The conversation shifted away. Regina stayed where she was. But she found her mouth opening to speak, found actual words coming out of it, answering questions about all her odd jobs since the military and sure, a few innocuous details about her service got sprinkled in too.

The only other person in the room who could have asked something truly dangerous was Max, and he was being unusually quiet.

They took mugs of early cider out on the porch afterwards. Regina's room was in a converted sunroom on the east side of the house. They'd lent her two box fans, in case it was too hot at night. She liked the screened paneling, thought it would make for real air to breathe. It was kind of them, to help Simon out like this, give his screwed-up sister somewhere to stay and something to do.

It was kind of them, and it was kind of them to take on half the living Elliots, and that combination of kindness was going to send Regina right off the deep-end.

 _You're going to have to see him_.

Back to combat mode again. Back to watching her hands move, lifting the cup to her lips and down again. Back to laughing at Lou and Henry's jokes.

Max kept looking at her.

"Don't you worry about the babies?" Mrs. Musgrove asked, when it got towards nine and the sun had long since set. "Tessa not feeling well…"

Charlie looked put-upon, but said they'd better go. Max looked put-upon, and didn't see why they should. Regina wanted to reach over him and slap him, just like she'd always wanted to. She didn't. It would give away too much. Break the bond of vague familiarity and arms-length that Max was allowing her, that was keeping everything momentarily safe.

"You got a long way to go?" Regina asked, when the leaving finally became imminent.

"We live just down the hill," Charlie—said. She pointed into the dusky bowl of the valley, where the edges of the fields rolled down, and yes, Regina could see it. There was a house down there. Squares of golden window light, blurring before her eyes, and beyond that...

 _Adam_.

She wondered what he would look like now. Grown out of bony wrists and elbows, but still strikingly pale, even delicate, against the contrast of dark hair and blue eyes. Did he ever learn to raise his voice, or live outside of Elliot systemic oppression?

Asking such questions hurt.

 _You ran from this. You ran all the way around the world and back again, and now you two are going to have to pick beans next to each other, like nothing ever happened_.

Regina breathed shakily, alone at last in the sunroom.

 _Like nothing ever happened_.

To everyone else, she was sure it would seem like nothing ever did.


End file.
